Colonization of Australia

The colonization of Australia describes British settlement and government of the continent of Australia from 1788 to 1901. Explorer Captain James Cook claimed Australia for Britain when he encountered it on April 19, 1770, during his first Pacific voyage. Australia was at that time home to about 750,000 people of more than 500 Indigenous groups. Eighteen years later, Britain began sending convicts and settlers to Australia. Many convicts were given no choice before they were shipped there. The penal colony was meant to relieve overcrowding in British prisons, but was also a means to establish a British base in the Southern Hemisphere. Its presence helped to cement Britain’s claims in the region and reinforce its status as a world power.

The colonization of Australia disrupted established cultures that developed over sixty thousand years. Europeans introduced diseases that wiped out populations. They did not understand local cultural ideas about the land and ownership, and pushed Indigenous people from land they had lived on for centuries. Newcomers took land for farming and sheep grazing. Gold rushes during the nineteenth century brought fortune seekers, and subsequent discoveries of silver, copper, tin, and other valuable minerals lured miners. Conflict between the colonizers and Indigenous people continued for generations and lasted well beyond the colonial period.

The six colonies of Australia operated largely independently of one another, with separate governments and militias. By the late nineteenth century, many Australians argued for more unity and a central government and military. Advocates of this union, or federation, cited a stronger economy as a major consideration. By 1901, the citizens of the six colonies had voted, and the colonial period was over.

Background

The Royal Society and the Admiralty—the government department in charge of naval affairs—organized a scientific expedition to the Pacific Ocean in 1768. Captain James Cook was dispatched to look for a southern continent and a passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. He encountered New Zealand first, and spent six months surveying the coast of the islands before sailing farther west, where he encountered the east coast of Australia. He claimed both New Zealand and Australia for the British Crown before returning home to report on his findings.

Most early European settlers of Australia were taken there against their will. They were convicts who were often shipped overseas with strict bans preventing them from ever returning to England. Some were given a choice between sailing to Australia or execution. Most of the female convicts were first offenders convicted of small thefts.

Ideas about prisons and punishment during the eighteenth century were unlike modern systems. The majority of people were in jail awaiting trial or were imprisoned because of debts they could not pay. If the accused was found guilty, punishment was immediate: fines, public shame, physical chastisement, or death. In England, a person convicted of stealing a silk handkerchief could be sentenced to death. Eighteenth-century England experienced an intense period when the public wanted officials to be tough on crime.

Many crimes were likely related to the Industrial Revolution and the enclosure movement in England. The bills collectively referred to as the enclosure movement privatized open fields, land that villagers had farmed for generations. It also privatized areas called wastes, such as moors or rocky land, where the peasantry traditionally pastured animals, collected firewood, fished, and used for other purposes. Rural people relied on these collective lands for survival. Without access to these lands, peasants had few choices. They could emigrate, work as tenant farmers for landowners, or move to crowded cities to compete for low-wage jobs. These economic stresses likely led to an increase in crime, such as theft and prostitution, as individuals and families struggled to fend off starvation.

Eighteenth-century prisons became overcrowded with people awaiting trial or debtors. The latter were a particular problem. Not only could they not pay what they owed, but debtors also could not earn wages to care for their families, who relied on charity. These families were regarded as a drain on society. Courts frequently sent convicts to the American colonies, where they were sold as servants. In fact, George Washington’s tutor was a convict servant his father purchased. Such practices went on for decades. This option came to an end, however, when the American colonies declared their independence from Britain in 1776. With the flow of convicts to North America ended, the prison system in Britain swelled considerably.

Captain Cook’s encounter with Australia occurred at an opportune time. Having received Captain Cook’s report about the continent in the Pacific, British authorities realized they could establish a penal colony in Australia. This would relieve the overburdened prison system while also establishing a British presence in the Southern hemisphere. Many were convinced that resources from the Pacific continent could refill British coffers, now that North America was no longer serving that purpose and the war had proven to be expensive and lengthy.

A fleet of eleven ships, collectively known as the First Fleet, left Portsmouth in 1787. The ships carried 1,480 men, women, and children. They were primarily British, with some African, American, and French convicts as well.

The First Fleet reached Botany Bay on January 24, 1788, after three months at sea. With a ceremony on January 26, Captain Arthur Phillip established a British colony at Botany Bay, modern Sydney, New South Wales. In addition to the convicts, six free men settled there.

Overview

The first British settlements were penal colonies at Sydney Cove and Norfolk Island. They were guarded by marines until 1790, when a unit recruited for colonial service took over security in Australia. The troops were meant to protect Australia from outside attack, police the settlements, and suppress uprisings of the Aboriginal peoples.

Convicts, some as young as nine years of age, were transported to Australia from 1788 until 1840. Many died of disease on the journey, during which they were kept in cramped and close quarters below deck. Conditions improved during the nineteenth century, as convicts were held in quarters with fresh air and cared for by attendants. Many pensioners—retired military—were hired to work as guards. They often brought their families as well and settled in Australia. These guards took better care of prisoners. Transporters were also paid bonuses when convicts arrived alive, and in good health, so captains and ship owners were invested in providing better conditions.

Upon arrival, convicts were divided into groups based on gender and criminal status. Most female convicts had previously worked in domestic service, and many were assigned to families as maids or childcare providers. They had usually been convicted of small thefts or prostitution—crimes that were usually committed to support families. If they were hardened criminals, women were sent to work houses called the Female Factories, where they performed jobs such as making rope, spinning wool, and washing laundry. These facilities doubled as places of confinement for women who became pregnant. Women often married as quickly as they could, though the process was largely patriarchal—reports describe men sizing women up on the docks and dropping a red cloth in front of one they fancied. If the woman picked up the cloth, she was accepting the proposal of marriage.

The most dangerous male criminals were sent to special prisons where they were watched closely. Those regarded as less hardened were assigned to work as servants for settlers, or were put to work on a labor gang. Prisoners who broke the rules were whipped or put on chain gangs, where they did the hard work of building roads and other infrastructure. These laborers provided virtually free work that carved out the new settlements.

The most difficult male prisoners were sent to isolated prisons or penal colonies, such as Norfolk Island. The conditions there were even more brutal. Model prisoners, however, could ask the governor to bring their families from England. Some prisoners were even permitted to work for their free families. About 160,000 people were sent to Australia over the fifty-two years of the transportation policy. Women numbered 24,960, while male convicts accounted for the remaining 132,308.

Europeans flooded to Australia through the nineteenth century for a number of reasons, including gold rushes, mineral mining, and wool farming. Many simply wanted land of their own, which had been denied them in England. Settlers pushed further into Indigenous Australians’ territories. Confrontations often became violent; often the newcomers used an overwhelming show of force, far out of proportion to the conflict. Some settlers committed mass murder by shooting Indigenous Australians or forcing large groups off cliffs; others gave poisoned food to Indigenous peoples.

Local authorities formed English volunteer units to keep the peace and address conflicts with Aboriginal Australians. An estimated 2,500 settlers and police were killed in such conflicts. About 20,000 Aboriginal Australians were killed and many thousands more died from disease—such as smallpox, influenza, and measles—and other impacts of European settlement. The need for military troops was less critical by the middle of the nineteenth century, in part because convict transport had long ended, and the last British regiment withdrew in 1870.

The settlements were great distances from one another, and for more than half a century, people relied on ships or horses to travel between the colonies. The first steam railway was completed in 1854 to move goods. As other lines were added to connect ports with people, the settlements began to coalesce into a nation. By 1901, five colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania—were linked by rail. Only Western Australia was still largely isolated.

By the end of the nineteenth century, most people living in Australia had been born there. The continent was flourishing with religious institutions, universities, and live entertainment. Artists and authors were exploring and recording the white Australian identity.

The British colonies of Australia were self-governing to some degree. They were still under the lawmaking power of the British Parliament. Each colony had its own government, laws, and defense force. Each colony issued its own stamps and collected taxes on goods that crossed its borders. These tariffs increased the cost of goods, and producers found it difficult to compete with local goods. Even the railways, which aided in transporting people and goods, were at odds—the colonies built railways of different gauges, requiring transfer from one system to another when entering and exiting neighboring colonies.

Beginning in the 1880s, many leaders and individuals pushed for developing stronger ties between the colonies, and creating a federation. Free traders argued that a federation would bolster the economy by eliminating taxes in six colonies and creating a single market. Defense was another concern. Each colony had its own forces—volunteers and a small number of permanent troops. All six colonies relied on the British Navy to patrol the coasts, however. Many Australians feared attacks from countries that had colonized other parts of the Pacific. In 1889 British Major-General Sir J. Bevan Edwards submitted a report about Australia’s defenses. Edwards concluded that the colonies fell far short of soldiers and weapons to defend themselves. He recommended Australia create a federal defense force.

Leaders put this question of forming a federation to the people in a referendum. After the vote in favor, the colonies became a Federation of States—the Commonwealth of Australia—on January 1, 1901, ending the colonial period.

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